Monday, June 22, 2015

Indian Cricket fan feels badly let down …. Not that losses are
new to us – we have seen may downs than Ups
- yet this loss at Mirpur hurts… When the Team was
picked up, we expected many youngsters would get chance – but to our surprise,
Indian selectors picked a full strength
side for the tour to Bangladesh. So with
the Senior side, Bangladesh have dominated completely and won their first-ever
bilateral series between the two sides. They have been more aggressive, more
confident, more decisive and more skillful than their higher-ranked
opponents. At Mirpur on Sunday, India
did what it does not generally do -
wholesome change - AjinkyaRahane,
Mohit Sharma and UmeshYadav were dropped
and in came Axar Patel, AmbatiRayudu and Dhawal Kulkarni. The result was no different. Suddenly, we think, there is none who can
change the fortune single handedly – from pace orientation in the 1st
ODI to spin in the next !

Bangladesh
were prepared to experiment and have been rewarded richly – the 19 year old left-arm
seamerMustafizur Rahman who stands on the way of batsman has shown that he is
capable of making them move out too. Now
he has 11 wickets in 2 games and is celebrating. The other bowlers too are celebrating. Last time, a second string team went and won it
2-0 – the average Indian fan was shocked to see Virat unable to score of a
freehit. In contrast, Bangladesh’s
batsmen were aggressive and decisive with their stroke-play. They did not let
India’s bowlers settle.

When
there is loss, people blame and criticise.
We have said, Greg Chappen was poor and harmed the team; Duncan Fletcher
was useless – what will we say of Ravi Shastri, the director who has now lost
to Bangla 0-2 ? – the Captain too would be baled. MS Dhoni has hit back at his critics, saying the
captaincy was a responsibility he was given and not something he craved or
clung to. In the aftermath of India's successive ODI defeats and subsequent
series loss to Bangladesh, Dhoni said he would love to give up the captaincy if
that guaranteed a change of fortunes for India."I am really enjoying my
cricket," Dhoni said when asked of his captaincy plans, before making
plain his annoyance at the media scrutiny. "I know this question was
coming. He may have his own
justifications, but two successive losses to Bangladesh rankles and something
must be done to stem the rot. No doubt
Dhoni has been one of the best finishers of the game – today, he walked at no.
4, yet India never lifted their game.

The
hosts are really on a roll. Now they
have 10 successive ODI wins at home - five against Zimbabwe, three against
Pakistan, and two against India. Thus
far, they have won 5 games against India in 31. Among the top ten sides,
Bangladesh have won more often against West Indies (seven out of 28) and New
Zealand (eight out of 25). MustafizurRahman took 5 for 50 in his first ODI and
6 for 43 in the second.

Away at Galle, Pakistan won a Test match aided by seven-wicket
haul from Yasir Shah. The score in brief
:Pakistan 417 (Shafiq 131, Sarfraz 96, Dilruwan 4-122) and 92 for 0 (Hafeez
46*, Shehzad 43*) beat Sri Lanka 300 (Silva 125) and 206 (Karunaratne 79, Yasir
7-76) by 10 wickets. On day 4, Pakistan had been five down and 182 behind Sri
Lanka's first-innings total at the time; few could have predicted then that
their openers would waltz to a target of 90 at eight runs an over a day and a
half later.

In England, brilliant Bairstow lead England to 3-2 series win. NZ made 283 for 9 but had to defend a lower
target by D/L method. Jonny Bairstow's
England debut saw him win a rain-affected ODI in Cardiff in 2011 and on his
return to the side here, in place of the injured Jos Buttler, he produced a
similar act with his best innings since that day to get England home and take a
thrilling ODI series against New Zealand. His unbeaten 83 from 60 balls won
what turned into a gripping decider in Durham.England's cavalier cricket has
won back the support of the British public during the New Zealand tour but
cavalier turned calamitous at the start of their Duckworth-Lewis revised chase
of 192 in 26 overs as they slumped to 45 for 5 at the start of the ninth over. This has been an exceptionally high scoring run-riot at
England – and they kept saying that runs are scored freely in the sub-continent
of Asia.

Getting
back to Indian performance, perhaps getting into the side and remaining there
is much easier than it was ever before -
the bowling attack was Bhuvanesh Kumar, Dhawal Kulkarni, Ashwin, Jadeja, Axar
Patel and Raina ! - two left arm
spinners playing. Both Jadeja and Axar
are left-arm fingerspinners, but the similarity ends there. The batting line-up suddenly is too weak,
though sounds great on paper.

Rohit, Dhawan, Kohli, Dhoni, Rayudu, Raina, Jadeja, Patel,
Ashwin – who is the weak link ? - but
sadly, it is the stars who have not been performing.

Rohit Sharma oozes style and is highly rated. He has 2 – double hundereds in ODI and has
scored the highest. After 264 against
Lanka and that 138 against Aussie in Melbourne – his scores read : 15; 0; 57*; 7; 64 (Ireland); 16; 137 (Bangla
in WC); 34; 63 & 0. Not consistent
and not justifying the hype behind him.

The young Axar whom we expect to be an allrounder following his
IPL exploits has played in 14 one dayers making 41 at an average of 6.83 and
has taken 17 wicketss. His batting card
reads :dnb; 8; 1; dnb; 14*; dnb; dnb; dnb; 17*; 0; 0; dnb; 1 & 0. Another
allrounder Sir Jadeja in 2015 has scores of 5; 3; 2; dnb; 13; dnb; dnb; 23*;
16; 32; 19.

While
wholesome chopping may never do any good – it is time, players are made to
realise that they cannot continue for too long without performing and at least
for that sake, some bold decisions are made, giving chance to new young
players, who cannot do anything worser than this ! A sad lamenting
Indian fan !!